


Aqua Fortis

by iloveyoudie



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Absolutely No one:, Blow Jobs in a Car, Boys being Boys?, Deepthroating, General Debauchery, M/M, Me: here's this, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rough Oral Sex, kinda filthy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 23:19:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19283254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyoudie/pseuds/iloveyoudie
Summary: Box and Jago and the lads were rough, a bit wild for him at his age, but not all bad. They reminded him of his days in London when he and Mickey were really in the dirt. It had been real police work then, real passion and grit, and even if it was grimey, it felt real. There was something bonding in it, something masculine and hard, something like the trenches. Something he didn’t think he’d ever feel again.





	Aqua Fortis

“Glad you’re on my side, Fred,” Ronnie may have been a bit too sloshed to drive but Fred was much further gone and was only aware enough of it to be grateful that he didn’t have to figure out his own way home in this state.

The guilt over the envelope he’d taken, the dirty money that was now burning a hole in the center of the bible in his sitting room at home, was nearly nonexistent after a night of laughter and booze and smokes. Box and Jago and the lads were rough, a bit wild for him at his age, but not all bad. They reminded him of his days in London when he and Mickey were really in the dirt. It had been real police work then, real passion and grit, and even if it was grimey, it felt real. There was something bonding in it, something masculine and hard, something like the trenches. Something he didn’t think he’d ever feel again.

Because Fred wasn’t sure that Oxford was real sometimes. It was a fantasy world stuck somewhere between the Middle Ages and modernity. It was full of just as many criminals as any other place, but if London was the trenches, then Oxford was the lord in the tower peering down at a map and making battle plans that would never sully his own fingers. Oxford crimes were intricate and puzzling. Oxford crimes were made for boys like Morse with their head in the clouds and puzzles to solve, who could speak the lofty language, or for men like Jim Strange who - in lieu of degrees - had their own sort of shrewd cunning, the sort of men who could operate around plans and schemes with an uncanny ease.

“Yeah. You’re alright, Ronnie,” Fred glanced over at Box and smiled guilelessly, a full night of whiskey and cigars sort of smile. He could barely feel his face but could still make out the fine angle of Box’s jaw in the dark of the car. The engine wasn’t even running yet because the rain had become torrential and was coming down in blinding sheets across the windscreen and Fred didn’t even think to question why they were just sitting there. The swirl of water in front of him being invisibly held at bay flickered with the neon of the pub window and the golden streetlight and the darkness of night and had him feeling like a man out of time, out of space, in a submersible where only a thin sheet of glass kept him safe and enclosed from the chaotic unknown just outside.

Fred patted himself all over for his pipe and pouch. The car wasn’t moving (and he wasn’t going to hurry it along) and a nice smoke would be good right now. He could do with the burn in his nose and in his throat to remind him that he wasn’t all the way gone.

Oxford in the rain with a load on felt even less real than it usually did.

Ronnie and the boys felt real to him when he could forget about the money and where it came from. When he could forget the idealized pulp novel that had been Cowley. There were no lofty intellectuals here. No puzzles or dramatics. Just hard nosed work. Strength. A steely eye and a firm word and grit. Sharp grins and rough handshakes and camaraderie. Sweat and hard decisions. The kind of work that made you feel like you were actually working.

Fred found his pipe, already packed and barely burned. He must have packed it at the bar but couldn’t quite remember now and his fingers stumbled for a match until Box stopped him.

One of the man’s firm hands clamped down on Fred’s knee, and a lighter was offered, silver and sleek, and Box leaned close, “Here y’are Fred. I got ya.”

Fred watched him, grateful for Box’s retained dexterity as he took a slow drag and a puff, and then another, and then slowly became aware of the feel of that hand on his knee. It was large and warm, athletic hands, clamped with a deliberate pressure, and when the lighter clacked shut with an impressive flick, that hand stayed right where it was.

Fred puffed again, felt the burn over his tongue and behind his teeth and breathed out, and that big strong hand smoothed slowly up his knee, curled around his leg, and then slid in what could only be called a caress up his inner thigh.

Fred stilled.

“Yer alright, Fred,” Box was watching him with intent, half leaning but still devastatingly cool and casual, and Fred, too drunk to turn to anger or offense met his eyes with a clear and puzzled reluctance. He took another puff of his pipe and the smoke wreathed moodily inside the cab of the car with an ethereal haze. Between the smoke and the rain thundering an intense tattoo against the roof and glass of the Zephyr, the unreal feeling of it all was cemented.

The only thing grounding him was that hand, mid-thigh now with the strong thumb rubbing circles through his trousers into his leg. Ronnie was a fine looking man, anyone would be a fool to think otherwise, and being on the outs with Win didn’t help at all when his brain began to distantly tell his body just a few seconds too late that he shouldn’t like being touched like this and that he shouldn’t be touched like this at all outside of his marital bed.

But he did like it and it was happening.

“I told you. It's not about the money. It's about respect, Fred. And I respect you,” Box’s voice had lowered and Fred could finally hear the slur of inebriation in it. It was liquid, scotch on the rocks, velvet and alluring, “It’s about trust. And you can trust me.”

That hand was finally up his thigh, the thumb now scratching a tempting line across the inside of his trouser leg and Fred didn’t even think when he spread his thighs just enough to give the wandering fingers more space.

Box smiled. He’d leaned in towards Fred and the older man had forgotten his pipe entirely where it smoldered in his hand when he felt lips brush his ear.

“You’re a fine man, Fred Thursday,” Ronnie growled lightly.

He shouldn’t have fallen so easily for such a simple thing but he was wanting - needy - and he couldn’t remember the last bit of praise he’d received. Fred couldn’t remember the last time someone had whispered to him with such definite decision.

He’d done Win wrong. He was a failed husband.

He’d let Fancy die. Morse shipped off to uniform. Uppity and ornery and never learning a lesson.

He was a failed governor.

It was crumbs really, words surely used just to get a rise from him, but it was enough to nourish a starving man and it was clear when Box’s hand finally closed over his half hard cock and palmed him through his trousers with a firm rub that it had worked.

“Christ..” Fred heard himself exhale as Box’s teeth pinched into his earlobe. That big, hot hand was working methodically around the shape of his cock, massaging him through the fabric until he was shifting from the maddening strain against the inside of his zipper.

“Christ ain’t got nothin’ on me, guv,” Box grinned, all straight white teeth, vainglorious and handsome. He had a jaw like Rock Hudson and Fred suddenly wanted to press his teeth to it, feel his stubble on his lips, taste the smoke and booze and tang of him.

He called him guv. Like in London. Like when he mattered. Even if the roles were actually reversed, Fred couldn’t make out the difference now.

That wandering hand had his fly undone while Fred was gazing and fantasizing and when Box pulled his cock free from the confines of his trousers and shorts, Fred zeroed back in with a gasp to be hit with cool air on his sensitive flesh and the rough feel of his shirt front as his cock bobbed eagerly against his belly.

Box didn’t even give him a chance to breathe. Strong fingers wrapped around him and squeezed.

“ _Christ!_ ” Fred groaned now. His hips shivered in need and he knew very well that at his age with this much alcohol in him that such arousal may not last.

Ronnie chuckled deeply, gravel and silk, as he let go, spit in his palm, and gripped Fred again, and as crude as it was, the action made him groan once more. Box gave him a few firm strokes and Fred let out a shuddering breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“No more’a that now,” Box stroked him agonizingly slow and firm, up to the tip where he pressed his thumb against the moisture that beaded there and smoothed it over him to make Fred shudder, “You wanna call out any name, you call out mine.”

And that’s when he leaned over and swallowed Fred’s cock to the root.

Box knew what he was doing.

Fred’s hand flew to the back of the man’s head as he held there, deep and tight with suction, and he gripped his hair when Box slowly withdrew, pulling tight with his lips and teasing with a wicked tongue. He sucked the head hard enough to get Fred gasping while his hand pumped slow over the spit-slicked length of him that had been engulfed moments before.

When Fred looked down he found Ronnie’s steely eyes looking back at him and that cheeky smile on his face, dimpled cheeks and chin and red lips, as he pulled back, licked across his own mouth, and dropped once more to swallow Fred again with a debauched joy.

Fred’s body was on fire. His hands tightened in Box’s hair as the man began to suck him, to work his cock like it was his life's mission. Box took him slow and deep, over and over, until he pressed so tight and close that Fred could feel his cock against the back of his throat, feel Box tense and hold himself there, feel him burrow his face nearly into Thursday’s belly and shudder with a spasm of both discomfort and pleasure as he nearly choked on him.

“ _Ronnie- Shit!_ ” Thursday gasped. He gripped hard into Box’s hair, squeezed and then released when he worried he was tugging was too hard. He was barely holding himself together to keep from coming on the spot.

Box withdrew then and inhaled sharply with a lascivious wet sound, a sloppy grin and a trail of moisture across his chin. He was enjoying this, enjoying swallowing him deep and nearly gagging on him, on being pressed tight to his body, smelling him and tasting him. He was a devil, this one, tempting him to depravity.

It was a temptation that Fred couldn’t find it in him to fight.

“I can take it, Fred. You can get rough with me...” One of those big hands joined Fred’s on the back of his head and he squeezed his fingers until they tightened again. Fred took the lead and tugged Box’s head back and the man grinned with a hiss at the slight pain, but his muscular neck was bared, all sinew and chiaroscuro lines of tendons and muscle in the hazy lighting.

Fred pulled him forward and bit him.

Box gasped and laughed in one surprisingly elated sound that fluttered through Fred's chest like a bird taking flight. Box grinned as he shoved him off and with his hand in the man’s hair, it wrenched roughly but Fred released him and found himself laughing as well. He wasn’t sure where it came from, something easy and real and without worry. Those laughs were from the same place that cigars and dirty jokes and bloody knuckles resided. Where a man could be himself with kindred spirits. Where the blood rush made him feel not so old anymore and not so tired and not so failed. The same place that allowed the man who was supposed to be his governor to stick his hands down his trousers and suck him off.

When Box shoved him he'd felt the honed strength in his arms and in his chest and he thought about what he might look like without those tight polo shirts and double breasted blazers. He thought about what his strong thighs may look like under the tight pull of his tailored trousers, what his arse may look like, reddened from a smack or a bite into the hard gym-toned muscle. He wondered what other skills he may have locked away besides his delightfully sinful mouth.

But that mouth was on him again and thinking once more flew out the proverbial window. Box took him deep, shifted for a different angle, and once more Fred was engulfed in the man’s hot mouth and tight throat and as it flexed around him he could do nothing but grip his thick hair again and hold him closer. That’s what Box wanted, to take him so deep it nearly pained him, and Fred complied with abandon. The brief praise, the clear desire in Ronnie, had him riding high on the control. A stuttered groan escaped him as Box’s jaw tremored around his cock. His throat spasmed but he was holding on, fingers gripping bruises into Fred’s thighs, and Fred was holding on too, not letting him move away until he felt Box’s body shiver and shudder as if he needed to breathe. When he did let go, Box pulled back again with a wet cough and another cat-got-the-canary smile.

“Fuck, Fred,” Box swallowed and licked his lips. Fred watched his adam’s apple rise and fall along his throat and couldn’t help reach for him and run his hand along the fine line of the other man's neck. Ronnie turned his face towards it but reacted with a cheeky bite to Fred's forearm through his shirt that sent another shot of heat through the older man. Box was taking a moment of rest, a moment to work Fred’s cock in a slow, firm stroke and keep him on edge.

Fred felt like he could explode at any moment but with the ebb and the flow, the infuriatingly skilled hands contrasting to being buried in Ronnie’s mouth, fucking his throat, tight and hot and filthy, and he knew exactly which way he’d prefer to go.

“I want you to come for me,” Box finally said. Whatever small break he’d taken was over and his head hovered once more over Fred’s ruddy prick. He played with it over his lips, pulled back the foreskin and flicked a tongue across his slit until Fred shuddered, and then licked his own lips again with relish, “Come for me and think about the next time when I’ll let you bend me over my desk and fuck me.”

Box swallowed him down again before Fred could even process that tantalizing mental image.

This time it was quick movement, friction and soft lips and lush wetness and any of the momentum lost in the short pause for a breather came back with a fury. Fred could feel everything and nothing at the same time. There was a tingling that moved inwards from his extremities, then the rough cut of the edge of the upholstery into his thigh as he spread his legs, the door handle pressing into his side as he’d unwittingly turned his body towards the man beside him, but then the heat and pleasure and gathering storm in his body, the mental fuzz of impending orgasm, the soft of Box’s hair between his fingers, the sweat on the back of his neck and in seams of his trembling body, and the surrender of himself to all of it.

He was there, so present and real and solid that he almost couldn’t stand it, and at the same time he was not. He was energy and lack of thought and only feeling and desire and he knew he was close - so close - to finding something there on the horizon and falling over the edge. Fred’s breathing came in harsh needy gasps until there was nothing at all of him left, only the place where Box’s mouth closed around his cock and where one of those big hands kneaded his bollocks and the sound of his own shattered voice crying out a warning of _‘Ronnie!’_ just as Box swallowed him down as deeply as he could.

Fred thrust himself into that tight throat and came with a feral sound. Box trembled with the effort of it, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as his face burrowed into Fred’s body, and spasming from being nearly overwhelmingly filled. It didn’t stop him from swallowing hungrily and groaning out his own desire, and the feeling of that sound vibrated through Fred and pushed him once more through another groaning tremor of orgasm.

When Box finally pulled away he gasped and coughed, and come and spit dripped down his chin before he quickly swept both his tears and the mess away with a handkerchief. He ran a hand over his jaw with a cocky grin, worked it back into relaxation, and as Fred panted and wheezed out his own recovery, he carefully cleaned the older man up and tucked him back away into his clothing.

Fred grabbed him before he could move too far away. He was buzzing from release, needy to not be let go of so soon, and for the first time all evening Ronnie looked surprised. Of all the things that could shock the man, Fred curling a hand around the back of that fine neck and pulling him forward for a kiss seemed to be the one action that could stop him in his tracks.

Box froze and drew back with a shock, “What’re you doing?”

Fred’s brow furrowed, not in worry, but instead with a dominating insistence. He didn’t let go and he felt his own steely strength battle the younger man’s as they locked together in Box's moment of indecision, “If it’s that good on my prick, I want to know what else your mouth can do. Do an old man the decency of a kiss, lad.”

When he kissed him again he was sure he’d shorted out something in Box’s mind. The protest disappeared in a sigh against his lips and for the first time, Fred felt some softness from Box. Ronnie nearly melted against him. He could taste himself on the man’s tongue, still taste cigarettes and beer, and something sweet that he was sure was just his unique flavor.

To think, of all things, that he would taste sweet.

They were both flushed when they broke apart and Fred could feel the warm burn of Box’s stubble around his mouth and the soft curl of his hair between his fingers. Ronnie was looking more disheveled after the kiss than he had the entire time he’d been wrapped around Fred’s cock with lascivious and reckless abandon. He looked more affected and surprised from that one gesture than the dirtiest thing he could have done with his head between Fred’s legs.

The rain was letting up when Ronnie finally put the keys in the ignition. He shifted from what Fred assumed was his own arousal but neither man made mention of it, or moved to do anything about it. They didn’t speak but Box put on the radio and they listened to something jazzy and slow as they made their way through the rain with the caution of men who’d had too much to drink and only burned half of it away with a quick bugger. Ronnie hummed when a familiar song came on and Fred took it as a cue to fetch his forgotten pipe and relight it.

Once more the cab of the car filled with the grey blue smokey haze and Fred cracked his window to feel the fresh breeze and the light patter of raindrops as they hit the glass and steel and woke him a bit from what was once more feeling a lot like a dream.

When the car finally stopped outside of his house he frisked himself for his hat and keys and wallet, and even checked his fly to make sure there was as little evidence as possible of what they’d been up to before he disembarked.

The street light through the rain cast dancing shadows over Box’s face as the man turned to him and smiled again, finally, for the first time since that kiss.

“Yer alright, Fred,” Ronnie said it again and there was something warm in it now and Fred found himself wanting very badly, and very suddenly, to kiss him again. But he could see the light on in their bedroom upstairs - her bedroom - and if Win was home he wouldn’t dare take the chance as guilt began to gnaw at him.

Fred gave him a smile of his own, small and wry, and he slipped his hat on.

“I meant what I said,” Box added in a low tone before Fred slipped out of the car, “About you and me and my desk.”

Fred felt something hot drop from his throat to his gut and his eyes dragged along Box’s arms and chest and jaw again until he met his eyes and gave him a slow nod, “Mind how you go.”

Fred heard the Zephyr pull away only after the front door had closed behind him. The house smelled like potpourri and cleaner and it made the smell hanging off of himself now, an emanation of smoke and booze and sex, more glaringly obvious.

When Fred alighted the stairs he could hear the rain pick up again, pounding on the front windows like it was after him, battering it’s way in, and as he neared the top landing he heard the master bedroom door close and the light click off.

The linoleum in the loo was spotless when he went for some water and the carpet on second floor absorbed his footsteps and it felt too easy to walk to the guest room and peel off his suit and take himself for a late shower. It felt too easy to have his sullied body cleaned. To wash away dirty sex and dirty money and be left in the sterile floral scented space that was feeling less real now than it ever had before. This was supposed to be his home but the silence was nearly deafening and every step made him feel like he was moving over eggshells.

Fred dressed in fresh pyjamas and noted a lack of anything on his body that might belay what he’d done. But he was now back to being just a tired and overweight old man. A failed husband again, kipping in the guest bed, because his wife couldn’t bear to be near him. He slipped between the sheets and listened to the distant Oxford bells through the sound of the rain on the roof and the feel of being alive and respected, one of the boys, of being accepted and felt and pleasured slipped further and further away with every deepening breath.

It doesn’t feel real sometimes. Oxford. Home. More so these days than ever before. The clean and the neat and the lofty of Oxford. Manicured lawns. Spotless linoleum. Fresh sheets and silence.

It all felt like a dream to him again. It wasn't real. The bells and the rain and the spires. Rank and file. Respect. Love.

It all drifted off as he did, as the exhaustion set in hard and fast, but he clung to the memory of a crooked grin and sinew between his teeth, sex on his lips, salty skin and tears and that bubble of laughter that came from a lost place he thought he’d never find again.

Fred thought about that soft look on Box’s face as he kissed him. That look in his eye before he finally left.

That was real.

**Author's Note:**

> I mean. What do you want me to say? 
> 
> I was possessed by a demon in the middle of the night and this is what happened.


End file.
